JUST IN TIME...

Holy Week approaches...


From Time:

Just in time for Easter, an Israeli television journalist has produced a pair of nails he says may have been used to crucify Jesus Christ. "We're not saying these are the nails," says Simcha Jacobovici, holding aloft a pair of smallish iron spikes with the tips hammered to one side. "We're saying these could be the nails."

Alrighty, then. Let your imagination run wild, and lots of things could be. I mean, you never know.

The case for the possible rests on a specific combination of research, surmising, guesswork and either the ineptitude or the skittishness of Israeli archeologists who inventoried the tomb thought to contain the bones of the Jewish high priest who ordered Christ's arrest. The tomb, found in 1990, appeared to contain the ossuary, or bone box, of Caiaphas, the jurist who paved the way for the crucifixion.
....

"When you raise the question of Jesus' crucifixion nails," Jacobovici says, "there should be a lot of skepticism."

Indeed the case arrives with no shortage of loose ends. The IAA's inventory states that one nail was found on the floor of the tomb, or cave, and another was found inside an ossuary. But there were 12 ossuaries in the tomb, and there is no record of which one it was in.

So what's the story here? Old nails were found. The nails may have been in what certain archeologists think may be Caiphas' tomb. Somehow the nails may have been separated from the rest of the contents of the tomb. The nails could be the crucifixion nails.

No shortage of loose ends, surely, a tangled trail, and lots of speculative leaps. The many "may have been", "could be", "appeared", "thought to" ought to give the reader pause.

Israeli TV and The History Channel, which should perhaps change its name to the It Coulda Happened Channel, will feature the documentary by Simcha Jacobovici, titled The Nails of the Cross. Jacobovici says:

"I don't think anybody's going to say, 'Crucifixion Nails' exclamation point," Jacobovici says. "I think they're going to write, 'Crucifixion Nails' question mark."

But there is no question mark in the title of the documentary, Mr Jacobovici.